Despite having seven new releases to chart this week, only one of them made it to the top five. However, that film was The Departed and it dominated both the rental and the sales chart. It took in $9.86 million in rentals during its first week of releases pushing Flags of Our Fathers into second place with $6.33 million.
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In terms of raw numbers, this isn't as busy a week as last, but there are a lot more releases worthy of discussing, including several that I rate highly.
The short-lived series Grosse Pointe - The Complete Series - Buy from Amazon gets its wide release after being an Amazon exclusive since November.
Half Nelson - Buy from Amazon comes up just in time for Oscar buzz to reach its peak.
Meanwhile, ... So Goes the Nation - Buy from Amazon should get the political junkies all worked up.
However, the clear winner of the DVD Pick of the Week is The Departed - 2-Disc Special Edition.
My only concern is the likelihood of a super special edition coming out after it wins several Oscars.
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Just a trio of films in the $10,000 club, but they are managed that feat by a huge margin. Leading the way was Volver with just under $200,000 on 5 theaters for an average of $39,541. This is actually lower than the opening per theater average for Pedro Almodovar's previoustwo films, but his biggest opening ever. Second place went to the overall number one film, Borat with $31,607 while last week's per theater average champion, Babel, came in third with $26,264 despite a huge increase in its theater count.
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After struggling nearly everywhere it played, including its native U.K., Keeping Mum led the way on the per theatres charts with an average of $13,556 in two theatres. This could be enough for it to earn some measure of mainstream success, but that's far from guaranteed. The U.S. vs John Lennon opened with nearly $70,000 in 6 theatres for an average of $11,524, which was just ahead of the only holdover to top $10,000, Man Push Cart with $11,002 in its lone theatre.
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High quantity on sites this week, but many of them were for new releases, most of which haven't had any updates in a while. Those that did have updates were generally quite small, but one site stood above them all, Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny - Official Site, which is easily the winner of the Weekly Website Award.
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It's a tough week for limited releases, not because there is a lack of quantity or quality, but because of nature of the films, many of which are difficult to talk about without potentially offending readers.
This is because there are a quartet of documentaries that deal with political matters.
One of them, Jesus Camp, even combines politics and religion, which is a sure path to flamewars.
While that film is surely the most contentious, it is also the best reviewed film of the week and the controversial nature could help it become the biggest hit.
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It seems a lot of people are starting their holidays early, but not this column as it's the busiest it's been in more than a month. Including in this list are a few newly released teaser trailers and a handful of flash sites, most of which are worth checking out. But the best of the best is the Running With Scissors - Official Site.
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